Hi

Kanye West Was Right

I like Kanye’s music. The last album I listened to was Yeezus. Even with music artists I like, I get bored and need to not listen to them for a minute. I don’t know why I mentioned that; it’s not really relevant to this post. I guess I could be admitting I’m biased since I like his music? Anyhow. I understand that he does have penchant to say a lot of stupid shit.

I was still a libertarian at the time and card carrying Republican. I even voted for Dubya TWICE. It’s a great shame of mine. I can offer no sufficient excuse. It just took me a long time to shake all the decades of brainwashing. Better late than never?

Well, at the time I thought Kanye was a stupid rapper who said some stupid shit. That was 2005. Flash forward to present day. I transitioned to mainstream Democrat for a minute and now I’m a full fledged socialist and all my cognitive dissonance, with regards to politics and economic policy, is completely gone. It’s nice. I recommend it. I vote Democrat, not because I’m happy with their strategy or efficacy but because they are not completely evil unlike the GOP. Why the big change in my world view and principles? That’s for another post.

But now we live under a piece of shit president that makes (and has made) people, even amnesiac Democrats, pine for Dubya. This is asinine for so many reasons. Besides the abhorrent response to Katrina, there’s also starting two wars (using falsified intelligence) that have resulted in the deaths of HUNDRED OF THOUSANDS of civilians and THOUSANDS of U.S. soldiers. Who knows the horrors 45 will visit on the USA in the next 3 years but he’s got a ways to go before he’s on the evil level of Dubya.

A lot of people are acting surprised at how racist and evil so many people, led by their head klansman Donald J. Trump, are. I have to admit I never thought the American electorate was so amoral that they would elect Trump. But I was wrong. And ever since then more and more “fringe” elements in the conservative tent, those “very fine people” have been emboldened.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think they are fringe elements. I think they are just the shameless elements of the conservative population. I’ll illustrate with an example. Let’s take John Doe Republican. He doesn’t think (or admit) he’s racist. He has black friends! His favorite athlete is black! He loves rap! But he voted for a Republican senator and a Republican congress person and he voted, despite some high minded sounding rationalizations about being conflicted, for Donald Trump. Here’s the problem. When you vote for elected officials who pass policies that cut funding from assistance programs for marginalized people, who support the deploying of a military to dangerous theaters that’s disproportionately represented by minorities, who pass laws that disenfranchise minority voters, who appoint judges who have a history of ruling against activist government programs that disproportionately support marginalized populations, who advocate for and defend criminal justice policies that violate the spirit of fairness and the honest interpretation of the constitution to effect life shattering consequences on ethnic minorities, who continue to support a president who sympathizes with white supremacists marchers, and who refuse to end the separation of children from undocumented immigrants, you are not an innocent bystander. You are complicit. You are choosing to support people who have time and time again chosen to dole out more power and money to those who need it least at the expense of marginalized populations, who are largely comprised of ethnic minorities. Supporting those support, enact and defend policies that have clear racist goals and ends makes you a racist.

It’s my belief that most conservatives are racist. Like Avenue Q famously sang, everyone is a little racist. But white folks who vote Republican, well, they’re a LOT more than a little racist. I just think most aren’t willing to admit it or may be so stupid that they don’t realize their votes to support racist government policies. Kanye was right.

He just wasn’t speaking broadly enough. And he was being too specific as to the offending party but I can’t really hold it against him since 43 was the head of the GOP at the time.

What he should have said: “The Republican Party, in an amoral disavowal of Abraham Lincoln’s and Ulysses S. Grant’s legacies, do not care about marginalized people, who are comprised, by a large margin, of black and brown people.”

You’re right. My version is super nerdy sounding and not nearly Kanye’s snappy turn of phrase.